The Middle East

Syria's war

Hard hit

ALEPPANS watched silently as a bulldozer shovelled piles of rubble and children picked through the debris outside Dar al-Shifa hospital. An air strike on November 22nd brought down a building and tore through the small hospital in a northern neighbourhood of the city controlled by the opposition, the sight was still one of utter devastation. A toilet stood exposed in one room where the wall had been ripped off; a bed hung out of another. "We think we have found all the bodies—37 of them," says a fighter standing guard.

The loss of Dar al-Shifa has hit hard. "It was the last medical facility accepting people from our side," says Mumtaz, a local activist. In a city that is increasingly polarised, that made it a symbol of hope. Many of Aleppo's inhabitants are angry that opposition fighters entered at all. The hospital had been struck at least a dozen times before it was destroyed. Its staff continued to treat the injured, moving them to safer floors, lower down. Most of the doctors and nurses were killed when the hospital was destroyed.

As the rebels gain ground, the regime is increasingly attacking them from the skies. On November 26th, warplanes struck the towns of Atareb and Sarmada on the northern border with Turkey. The target in Atareb was probably the Joint Military Command, an operations room formerly based in Istanbul which helps make plans, logistics and weapons for opposition groups across the country. The border areas are vital lifelines for the fighters and civilians whose numbers have swelled as Syrians from other areas of the country have left their homes.

The regime justifies such assaults by saying that fighters (whom they brand "terrorists") are operating in civilian areas. But more often than not the strikes seem deliberately to target ordinary people and buildings. In the last three days two food factories have been hit: one in Aleppo province on Monday and an olive oil factory in Idleb on Tuesday. That same day, ten children in a playground were killed when a jet released a cluster bomb, spraying a cascade of small bomblets, on Deir Assafir, to the east of Damascus, where rebels are moving uncomfortably close to the city for the regime's liking.

For all their slow, steady advances on the ground, the fighters have been largely helpless against air attacks. They have managed to destroy some helicopters and aircraft sitting on runways and brought down a few low-flying ones using improvised weapons. But in the last 48 hours the rebels have hit several helicopters and planes in the north using a small number of anti-aircraft missiles grabbed during attacks on regime bases. How many working missiles they have is unclear but if they have enough, it could tip the balance in their favour. "We can get rid of the regime's forces on the ground," says Abdull Jabbar Akaidi, who heads Aleppo's Military Council from a villa in the countryside. "Now we need to be able to stop them using the skies."

Readers' comments

I never like words like "seem deliberately". Has the poster ever fired a weapon? Ever been in combat? Ever flown a jet fighter?

The implication is the regime, which is awful, sent out specific combat missions to attack targets the regime specifically knew were civilian with the specific purpose of killing ordinary people, though those people are citizens of the regime's own country. The evidence for this is the attacks happened.

Isn't it more likely a fighter pilot missed? Even laser guided munitions miss and I doubt the Syrians have tons of those. GPS guided munitions also miss and I doubt the Syrians have many of those either. So maybe there was a miss. And maybe the commanders somewhere in the line thought a target was military. And maybe someone made an error in judgement. And despite all these more likely possibilities, the poster decides that smoke equals fire and jumps to moral judgement. That isn't sensible.

So take as an example that back in the Iraq war of the last decade, an American combat strike wiped out much of a wedding party. That by the poster's logic would "seem deliberately" aimed at civilians. But of course it was a bunch of mistakes with people thinking the wedding party was something else.

It is believed that Syrian rebels have acquired as many as 40 shoulder-fired missile systems in recent weeks to counter assaults by the Syrian air force. This could prove to be a decisive new weapon in the conflict. The potential impacts of the missiles have already been demonstrated with the dramatic downing of a Syrian helicopter, blasted from the sky near Aleppo, with a portable anti-aircraft missile (MANPADS).

The Obama administration has steadfastly opposed arming the Syrian rebels with such missiles, believing that the weapons could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and by being used to shoot down commercial aircraft. However, the flow of arms into Syrian rebel hands appears to being used with increasing effectiveness against Syrian helicopters and military fighter jets. Some of the missiles have been supplied by Qatar to Syria’s rebels across the Turkish border. Opposition forces, who have struggled against the superior arms and the air power of the Assad regime, have pleaded for heavier weapons from the international community.

Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia have provided extensive help for Syria’s rebels in recent months – providing cash and weapons for a guerrilla army that has received only ‘non-lethal aid’ from Washington and Western Europe.

Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles have served in previous insurgencies as equalisers. Afghanistan’s mujahidin fighters, for instance, effectively used U.S.-supplied FIM-92 ‘Stinger’ missiles against vastly superior Soviet forces during that country's civil war in the 1980s.

This Civil War is not yet close to a 'tipping point' … for all their bravado the 'rebels' are still fractured …

Assad hasn't gone to the basement for his WMD/Biological weapons … but he will … his failure to secure Damascus will be his demise … the regime and its acolytes will retreat to the Alawi stronghold around Latakia … the retreat will signal the end of hostilities …

That's still in the future … hunker down there's still some juice in this berry! There will be over 100K dead before Assad is dead or moved to Latakia …

Syria will be a 'basket-case' by that time … it will take BILLIONS to rebuild and recover and a decade of time … Qatar & Saudi Arabia better be forthcoming … it was their show … they better 'pony up' …